Body Heat
by x4ashes4ashes
Summary: The Evans' take a family vacation at a ski resort over the winter break following graduation.  It doesn't end with Sharpay and Ryan singing "Start of Something New" on karaoke.  The rest is in the title. So, yes, a little cliche. Sharpay/Ryan-Rypay


Summary: The Evans' take a family vacation at a ski resort over the winter break following graduation. (It doesn't end with Sharpay and Ryan singing "Start of Something New" on karaoke.) The rest is in the title.

I have to apologize for this extremely uninformed fanfic: I know very little about skiing, snowmobiles, and survival situations, and aside from driving through it once in the summer, I know very little about Vail. I wasn't in the mood for research, so I went with what was convenient for the plot of the story, for the most part.

Sharpay didn't have a bubble-gum pink snowmobile with her initials in white lettering on the side - ooh, but she wanted one, she should write that down – however, it wasn't hard for her get to get access to a standard one reserved for resort staff. A "do you know who my parents are?" in an imposing voice and an "of course I know what I'm doing" got her all that she needed. Unlike Lava Springs, the Evans' did not own the Snowy Mountain Ski Resort in Vail, Colorado. Sharpay comforted herself as to this fact by reminding herself how much she preferred Aspen. Vail, of course, was closer to Albuquerque, which made it more ideal for a weekend trip. But this wasn't a weekend trip, after all – it was for several weeks – and Sharpay didn't understand why they hadn't gone all the way to the Alps. What was Vail Mountain compared to Mont Blanc? She'd been working on her French, after all: "_Non, non, c'est juste mon frère_."

Ryan was just finishing lunch when Sharpay dangled the keys in his face. "No more of these crowded, bunny slopes for us," she exclaimed, taking a deep, anticipatory breath of the fresh, peopleless air she was about to be breathing.

He furrowed his eyebrows, skeptical that he would share her excitement once he learned what she had planned. "What are those?"

"Keys to a snowmobile that's ours for the rest of the afternoon. Finish that bread pudding, get your gear, and meet me outside!"

"Are you sure we're supposed to-"

"It's _fine_! Trust me." It was about time he responded to that command with snark, but nothing witty came to mind. So he did what she asked – the getting the gear part, not so much the trusting. A snowmobile trip did sound like fun, and he was tired of sharing the slopes. Both he and Sharpay had taken several seasons of lessons, and were experienced enough for some of the more challenging courses. They'd already been at the resort for four days, so their skills weren't so rusty anymore. And because they did so much dancing (and yoga for him), which worked so many muscles, they weren't even that sore. He quickly warmed up to the idea of taking the snowmobile out to look for some virgin hills.

Her (of course) pink snow suit stood out starkly against the white. His blue one matched the sunny sky. He had to admit that it looked like a perfect day. "Where are Mom and Dad?" he asked as he brought his skies out to the snowmobile.

Sharpay loaded them expertly along the sides where this vehicle and been equipped to carry such things and where hers were now attached. "Spa day in town. They left before you woke up."

"Do you know how much longer we're staying?"

She turned to look at him sharply. "Why? Do you want to go?"

"No, no it's not that. I was just hoping to spend a little time in Albuquerque during break so that I could see-"

"Those high school losers we left behind?" Sharpay tried to sound more incredulous than disappointed, but she wasn't sure whether she was successful or not.

Ryan smirked. "We didn't exactly leave them behind, did we? Taylor at Yale, Gabriella at Stanford, Troy at Berkeley…"

"Whatever. Loser was the important part of that sentence."

"I just wanted to hang with them for a bit, while we're all on winter break. I haven't seen them since the summer."

Sharpay threw one leg over the side of the snowmobile and straddled it with inordinately ostentatious sensuality. She sighed as she did so, and shook her head with pity at her brother. "Ryan, Ryan, Ryan."

Walking over to her, he steadied himself for whatever she was about to say, and put on his helmet when she handed it to him. "All those stupid songs we sang about being friends forever and being stronger together, and Troy's stupid speech at graduation – it's all just stuff that you say when you finish high school. Stuff you write in yearbooks and repeat over and over to people you're never gonna see again. It's bullshit. It doesn't mean anything. High school's over – everyone's moving on, independently. All that forever business is nonsense! Those people aren't going to stay friends with _each other_ let alone you and me! By the time they finish college – _if_ they manage to do so – most of them won't have spoken to each other in at least a year, I promise you."

Her face softened as she finished her cynical diatribe. She slid her pinkie around his and locked them tightly together. Then she lifted their hands up for him to see, and smiled. "We're different, Ryan." Her brown eyes were warmer than usual, and she made sure his blue ones couldn't escape her gaze. "We're twins. We're family. Family_ is_ forever." Her smile broadened. "When we sang those words they were only true for us."

Ryan smiled in spite of himself, and was jarred unpleasantly when she released her hold on his hand.

"Now, hop on," she ordered, turning forward.

Sharpay always drove. It wasn't that he didn't like to drive, or that she didn't trust him to, it was simply that Sharpay was not the kind to be a passenger. Plus, the vehicle usually belonged to her. This one was pseudo-possession.

He sat down behind her and did not quite feel secure: it was built for two (possibly), and his seat had a back (at least that's what he thought it was), but not one tall and wide enough to hold him in it, especially the way Sharpay drove.

"You're gonna want to hold on," she said over the sound of the engine as she turned it on, reading his thoughts.

"To what?" he asked, looking around.

"To me, silly!" she laughed, revving.

He raised his eyebrows, but there didn't seem to be any other options, so he shrugged, and wrapped his arms around her stomach. Even through the thickness of her snow gear, his arms detected hints of the definition of her torso – her ribs, her curves. He wondered if his hands were too high or too low.

"Too loose," she shouted.

"What?" he asked, taken aback. Then he was thrown aback, as she shifted into drive and took off. It didn't go zero to sixty in less than 20 seconds, but the speed was remarkable given the territory.

And she was right: too loose. Instinctively, he gripped her tighter. Being larger, and fortified with an adrenaline boost, his effort to do so yanked her against him, so far back that she could no longer reach the peddles. She screamed. With her foot off the gas, it slowed enough so that when Ryan released her (reactively, not realizing why she had screamed and wondering with an unfamiliar guilt whether it was because of his touch), and in turn flew off the back of the vehicle, it didn't hurt him too badly.

She brought the snowmobile to a halt and waited for him to catch up. "What's wrong with you?" she demanded.

"Maybe you should let me drive," he suggested. "I've got a moped."

Her eyes went wide. "You're blaming that train wreck on _me_?"

He tried a different tack: "I would like to drive. Will you please let me?"

"I don't think so. You can't even _ride_ it - you think I'm gonna let you drive it?"

Despite her protestations, when he gestured her to move, she did, sliding back. He hopped on the front and placed his palms and fingers over the handlebars appreciatively.

Sharpay wasn't shy: she brought her body up against his slowly and clutched him with what he assumed to be the proper amount of tightness. She leaned her head over his shoulder and told him to get on it with it already. Her warm, humid breath against his ear and neck was easy to sense amidst the cold.

Considering there was no road, no stops, and no signs she still managed to be quite the backseat driver.

"Do you know where we're going?" he asked, wary.

She shook her hand around nonchalantly. "Out there, somewhere."

This was not a satisfying answer, but he followed her "go left"s, and her "go right"s until they reached an incline that was relatively obstructionless.

Ryan parked the snowmobile, and they unloaded their skis. He admired the spot with a smile.

Sharpay dismounted and lifted her sunglasses with a pleased sigh. "Fabulous."

Since there was no lift, they arranged to take turns driving each other back up the hill and Sharpay was good, only asking for a few extra chances to ski down.

He was leaning against the snowmobile, checking out the horizon, when she skied to a stop in front of him and lifted up her eye mask. "Isn't this great?"

He laughed. For once she had actually delivered. "Yeah – definitely our best day of skiing yet. But the sun's going down; we should probably head back. At least I think the sun is going down, it's hard to tell." It was now thickly overcast. Amazing what a few hours could do.

"You just don't want to miss dinner," she pointed out with a wink, but then with a nod she reluctantly agreed. "Yeah, it'll be dark soon."

Ryan loaded the skis while Sharpay watched. She chewed on her lip indecisively, several sentiments whirling around in her head, but they remained unexpressed.

"Ready?" he asked, already at the driver's seat.

She hopped on. "Let's go."

He was afraid to ask if she knew the way back to the lodge. He thought he had a decent sense of the general direction from which they had come, but as it was getting darker and darker, what had already looked similar was beginning to look exactly the same. Trees, snow, snow, trees – there wasn't a whole lot to go by. They were below the timber line, and it was impossible to see the mountain peaks through the branches, especially now that it was twilight. To make matters worse, he was pretty sure it was about to snow.

He slowed to a gentle stop and turned off the vehicle. "We're lost."

"No, we're not," she denied categorically.

"I don't know where we are, where we've come from, or how to get to where we're going, so, yeah, I think we're lost."

"What about the GPS?"

"There's a GPS?"

"Well, of course there is." She paused. "Isn't there?" She leaned forward around Ryan's side to look at the dash.

There wasn't a GPS.

"It's fine: you've got one in your phone, right?" she asked.

"I didn't bring my phone, Sharpay: there's no reception up here."

"No tower reception, but there's satellite reception!"

He rolled his eyes. "I didn't think I would need it."

"Well, just follow the bread crumb trail, Hansel. Oh wait, you didn't leave one!"

"What? This was _your_ idea. I thought you knew where you were going."

"I did. We found a nice slope, didn't we?"

Ryan laughed mirthlessly. "You really have no idea how to get back?"

"I know exactly how to get back: drive there in the snowmobile!" she snapped. "You're the driver: you're supposed to remember the way. It's the driver's responsibility."

Ryan shook his head in disbelief. "We're gonna die."

"Chill, Ry: I'm sure this thing has a LoJack. This is the 21st century after all. Besides, can't we just go up beyond the trees and then look for the lights?"

He slid off the seat and began to pace. "It's too steep, I think. Besides, look." He held up his hands and then looked up into the sky: snow flakes abounded, and the fall was picking up. "A blizzard."

"It's just a little precipitation. They're used to it here."

"My point is," he muttered angrily, "there is no visibility. We won't be able to see the lights from the lodge, we won't be able to see our rescue, and they won't be able to see us."

"Well, I'm sure they've got a horn."

"Isn't there, like, I don't know, a danger of avalanches, or something?" Some musical he'd seen…Sabine women…something about screaming…

"I don't know, Ryan! I wish you would calm down, you're starting to freak me out."

She had been warm from her exertion at skiing, but she was cooled off now, and in fact, she actually felt a little cold…The flakes landing on her face and in her hair, and the rising wind, were not helping.

Sharpay shivered and then crossed her arms tightly. "It's so dark…"

The headlight on the snowmobile was bright, but it only penetrated the snowfall for 20 feet or so, and only in one direction.

"We're gonna be eaten by bears!" Ryan exclaimed, scanning in the distance.

"Don't be ridiculous: there aren't any bears here. Besides, bears hibernate during the winter, hello! Now, you need to calm down: it's my turn to panic. Your level-headedness to _my_ paranoia – remember?"

He tried to obey, and get back to thinking practically. They couldn't drive in this: they'd end up hitting a tree or careening down a ravine. He also didn't know how much gas was left; it'd be better to save the remaining fuel for when they had a better chance of finding the resort. It said just below a quarter tank, but he didn't know how large the tank was, or how far the snowmobile could get on that amount. They wouldn't want to stray from the vehicle in case it did have a LoJack, and they wouldn't get very far walking anyway. So all that remained was for them to stay there until they were rescued, or until it was day and the storm was over.

Truth be told, it wasn't much of a storm. But it was enough to scare two desert-dwellers, and it was getting them wet and making them cold.

"I think we should just hunker down here and wait," he finally said, stepping closer into the circle of light provided by the mobile so that he could see Sharpay's face and she could see his.

Her eyes blew up. "Here?"

He explained his reasoning, and she had to agree, though it was not cheerfully done. Before he'd stopped the snowmobile she'd already had a sickening feeling that they were going in circles. And now, looking around, and not being able to see much of anything, she didn't suppose they had a much better chance than when it was still light out and not snowing.

"Tuck your hair back into your hood: it's getting wet," he instructed. Then he turned his back on her and chewed on his index finger thoughtfully. They needed shelter. They didn't have any food – he'd already checked. Well, they wouldn't get dehydrated, anyway.

Shelter, shelter…

Sharpay's mind was on the same thing. "You should build an igloo," she suggested.

"I think that might actually take skill," he replied, turning back to her with chagrin.

"Is there any paper?" she asked.

"Why?"

"I need to write out my last will and testament. I need to make sure that Boi is provided for. I want him to continue to live in the style to which he has grown accustomed."

Ryan shook his head and turned back to more pragmatic thoughts. There wasn't a lot of rock face in this area, so their chances of finding a cave were essentially zero.

He had to do the best he could with what was available. He was fortunate enough to find two large trees side by side, with just a small amount of space between their trunks. "It's going to be part igloo," he informed her, pointing out the spot where he was going to build them a fort. "We're gonna fill this area here in with snow."

Sharpay packed snow tightly in between the two trees while Ryan brought the snowmobile over and parked it at a 25 degree angle or so with the two trees. "Build the snow wall as tall as the seat on the snowmobile," he instructed before falling into a pensive trance.

"Yes, master," she grumbled, but he didn't hear.

They couldn't lie right on the snowy ground: the heat from their bodies would melt the snow beneath them and create a puddle. Their snowsuits weren't quite thick enough, he didn't think. They needed a barrier between them and the earth. It would make sense for there to be some emergency blankets in the snowmobile – hidden under the seats or wherever – so of course, there weren't. Further searching revealed something perhaps even better: a tarp. It was only large enough to cover up the vehicle, but that was large enough: it fit almost perfectly into the triangular area where they would be sleeping once their makeshift fort was finished.

"Pack it as tightly as you can," he reminded his sister as he laid the tarp down.

"You're the guy, can't you do this?" she asked, ready to quit.

"While you do what?"

"Supervise? Cheer you on? Provide sarcastic commentary?"

"That all sounds lovely, but I think I'll take the manual labor, thanks."

"Isn't this enough?"

"It needs to be a little taller." He sighed. "You're cold, right?" She nodded. "Well, the sooner we get this done, the sooner you get to warm up, OK?" She nodded again, begrudgingly accepting his orders.

It might have seemed to others like they had grown a little bit apart in the past year and a half, but Ryan knew that it was more complicated than that. What was going on between them was a renegotiation of power. Ryan was finally doing what he should have done years ago: he was stopping being her poodle, and trying to be her partner. He knew that he could be his own person without being breaking from her, just like they could both be themselves while still having an equal relationship. But it was rough going: the summer before last came to mind - it still hurt to remember the way they'd fought. Spring semester of senior year had almost been worse: he'd wanted to believe her so badly, but he never knew if he could, and torn between his new friends/doing the right thing and his loyalty/admiration/need/love for Sharpay had been absolute misery. At the time it had seemed like he'd gotten through the ordeal without having had to make a definitive choice, but in retrospect he felt guilty, like he hadn't come through for her when she had needed him.

Despite all that, and despite their months separated while he was at school, they'd fallen easily into familiar patterns, ancient patterns, patterns he'd welcomed. But it was strained. Their siblinghood was wounded. She was still adjusting to the ways in which he'd changed. He'd only ever been as stupid or as weak or as clueless as he had let her make him be, and he wasn't letting her anymore. She needed to adapt. It took time. A betrayal from her was necessary to make him stand up for himself. It had been an awakening. But he'd never cut any cords with her, he'd never left the space they shared. She was the one who needed to figure things out and then come back to him when she had accepted that he had changed.

She was starting to, which was why he wasn't entirely surprised that she was letting him be in charge. She was finally ready to let him be all that he could be: she wasn't curbing his reach, smothering his ideas, hampering his development. She was letting go of her talon-hold on the power. The second the situation had become serious she had ceded him the control, the authority, the decision-making power, because he had a plan, and she trusted him. Completely. And she was finally ready to act on that trust. It had always been there. After all, nothing mattered more to her than performing, and it had always been him up there alongside her. It might have been wishful thinking, but Ryan truly believed that the way she had kept him wrapped around her finger was more misguided than malevolent. And anyway: you always hurt the ones you love, because love is stronger than anything you could ever do to each other. Ryan had always known there was an element of that to their relationship: Sharpay was never afraid of hurting Ryan because he was Ryan, her twin, and he would always be there, no matter what.

And she was pretty much right.

Because no matter how much she walked all over him, she would always be Sharpay, his twin, and the sun in his universe.

"Well?" Sharpay demanded.

"What?"

"Is this good enough?"

"Oh." He could tell from her expression that she had already posed this question at least once before. He appraised it and then gave her a nod. He could barely see anything now that the light from the snowmobile was pointing away from them, but a few pats helped him confirm what he thought he was seeing.

They laid one ski across the triangle, one end of it resting on the snowmobile, and the other on the snow wall that Sharpay had constructed in between the two trees. Sharpay helped Ryan lay the other three skis down on top and perpendicular. The balance was tenuous, but as long as they weren't bumped he was pretty sure they would stay in place.

"A roof!" Sharpay exclaimed, surprised and pleased.

Ryan was pleased as well: it covered the area far better than he had hoped. Between the branches of the trees and the skis, hardly any snow was getting through onto the tarp. He would've liked to cut some more branches to cover it up a bit more, but he didn't have anything to cut with. He'd never ever thought he'd have need of a machete, but one would've been handy right about then. He set their helmets and a few other miscellaneous items on top to cover up the holes.

It was time to test it out. Taking a nervous breath, Ryan plunged inside. He swept out the snowflakes that had begun to collect on the tarp since he had laid it down, and was relieved to see that no more were coming through. It was still freezing inside, but the wind had been significantly cut down.

"Is it ready?" Sharpay asked eagerly.

"Not quite." He slipped out, carefully not to disturb the skis.

He reinforced the snowmobile with some snow, and filled in some of the spaces so that it would be impermeable by the wind. And then turned off the headlight so as not to exhaust the battery, hoping their eyes would adjust to the darkness.

All that remained was the opening. There was nothing he could do except to fill it in with a little snow once they were inside.

"Your suite is ready, milady," he joked, presenting the entrance with an unfurling of his hand.

She smiled for his sake and crawled inside. "Well, this is better, anyway," she mumbled.

"I've sent for your Peruvian tiling, but it's not here yet," he said, following her in.

"And my Persian rug?"

"It's scheduled to arrive tomorrow."

She noticed it get warmer as soon as he was beside her. He was in for some first class cuddling.

"You did a good job, Ry," she praised in all seriousness. "I'm sorry you're missing dinner."

He chuckled. "It's all right. Now we've got a story. As long as we live through this."

He worked on a small snow wall to fill in the entrance. She gestured to help, but he indicated that she should remain where she was: there wasn't enough room for them both and their elbows. It was a tight squeeze, but the tighter the better if they were going to keep warm.

He lied down beside her once he was finished, and then began to twiddle his thumbs.

"It can't be later than 9:00: I'm not exactly tired," he said, sensing her own restlessness.

"Especially since you got up around 11:00," she teased.

The truth was, they'd both had a pretty active day and could have slept if they weren't so damn cold.

Conversation didn't usually flag between them, but the silence was acutely awkward. Ryan's mind was spinning, trying to come up with ways to warm them up.

Sharpay's thoughts were apparently elsewhere: "I missed you."

He tensed. "You mean that?"

"Do you think I would say that if I didn't mean it?"  
>"I don't know. Maybe if you wanted something from me."<p>

"A little harsh, but I take your point. Fine: I mean it. I really, _really_ missed you. I could say that my life hasn't been the same while you've been away, but that's kind of obvious. I'd have to say something more like _I _haven't been the same while you've been away. I'm not sure that I'm really me, without you." She groped in the darkness for his hand and then interlaced their fingers. "I'm not like Troy: I can't find the right words to say exactly what I mean and then make everything better in one little speech. But I need to say I'm sorry, and I hope that you'll take that for what it is and that you'll know what I mean, and that I mean it."

"I don't think you've ever apologized to me before, Shar."

"I'm not sure I've ever been a very good sister."

"You can't have been too bad: I've only ever wanted to be beside you."

She gripped his hand even tighter. "If it's any consolation, I think you're the only person who can make me cry. Like I'm about to right now."

He took her into his arms in a comforting embrace, but he could barely feel her underneath all of the padding. He held her tight, like he should have earlier on the snowmobile. "Don't cry. The last thing we need is for you to be getting all wet. And there aren't any tissues."

She nodded against his chest. "Tell me something that'll make me happy."

Ryan didn't want to encourage or enable the darker inclinations of his sister, but he was eager to ease her back from the verge of tears. "Well, a few weeks ago, right after classes resumed from Thanksgiving break, Kelsi and I were leaving the food court, and she was carrying a smoothie, and she tripped, and fell. Not only did she hit the ground, but she got smoothie all over her clothes. Everyone saw. They laughed."

Sharpay found this story very pleasing. Ryan could almost feel her smiling against him.

"It's fucking cold," she complained, no longer about to cry but far from nirvana. "Can't you make a fire or something?"

"I'm not a wizard, Sharpay."

"Like with sticks, I mean."

"I don't know anymore about that Boy Scout stuff than you do. Besides, there's nothing to burn."

"There are trees everywhere."

"Intact, wet, living trees. We have no knife, no matches, and we may need every last drop of gasoline in the snowmobile. You are welcome to rub two sticks together to your heart's content. I'll be in here, trying to fall asleep."

"OK, OK, I get it. No fire. But my toes are going numb. And my nose. These were expensive snowsuits – you'd think they would keep us warm."

"They had thicker ones," Ryan reminded her. "You wanted one that you looked good in."

She rolled her eyes, but he couldn't see. "You're cold too, aren't you?"

"Well, it's cold out."

"If we go to sleep like this, you're going to wake up next to icicle."

"Don't be so dramatic and stop complaining: you'll be fine."

Annoyed, she shifted slightly away from him with a sigh and faced up to the ski-ceiling. She suddenly became colder. "This isn't working out!" she muttered.

"I'm all ears: let's hear _your_ brilliant ideas."

"Well, all that's left is for us to take our clothes off."

Ryan furrowed his eyebrows. "Wh-what?"

"This strikes me as a skin-to-skin sort of situation. You know, sharing body heat and all that."

"Oh. Body heat. Right."

"I'm sure I've seen it in the movies." She wanted to warm her feet in between his thighs. Her hands too, for that matter. No, that was going too far.

She slid her hand up his chest until it found the zipper, cooing with excitement. With her gloves on it was tough to complete the simple operation, and she struggled with it petulantly. "You've got heat in there, and you're keeping it all to yourself!" she accused, yanking the pull tab of the slider in desperate futility. It seemed to be stuck now on some loose threads of the sweater he was wearing underneath.

He stopped her [later than he should have, because he had been titillated with his first experience (since he'd been a child) of someone trying to undress him]. "We're better off in our snow suits. That…system doesn't really work without a sleeping bag, or at least blankets. You know, something to keep the heat in."

She pulled her hand away with a frustrated groan rolled back into a supine position.

On this one occasion, Ryan was cursing his own wisdom. He was having trouble admitting it to himself – for obvious reasons – but a "skin-to-skin sort of situation" sounded…rather enjoyable. He told himself that it was just because he was cold, and he craved an external heat source. But when he found himself picturing his hand sliding down her bare arm, down her "golden throat", across her shoulder blades and then down to the small of her back, and then found himself wishing that it were his lips instead, he had to face the truth: this feeling had very little to do with snow or wind, and it wasn't going to go away when they got back to the lodge.

With all of the shows they had done, Ryan thought he'd probably gotten further with her than anyone ever had before, even Zeke, and that was without the get-naked-to-keep-warm-in-the-blizzard scenario. She liked being unattainable. She didn't need physical contact to soothe her lust: she got off on being wanted.

Of course, that would change some day. But for now, he was closer, and had been closer to her than anyone else. And he treasured that.

"Are you seeing anyone at school?" he asked, trying to sound casually interested, brotherly.

Sharpay laughed. "_There_? I don't think so." She concluded the laugh with an amused exhale and then became silent. "You?" she asked quietly.

"No."

"Not Kelsi?"

"No."

It was clear that neither one of them liked this topic of conversation when they fell into silence again.

Ryan rolled onto his side, away from her. "Here, slide over towards me."

"Why?"

"I've got an idea."

She obeyed, filling in the space that he had vacated.

He unzipped the top of her snowsuit down to her bellybutton, and then his the same amount. Then he pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and gently set himself back down on top of her.

He was taller than her, but he matched up their faces, not entirely on purpose. Her breath was starting to thaw his nearly frostbitten nose. "Are you warmer now?" he asked.

"Ye-yes," she whispered in response.

Ryan removed his gloves and slipped his hands into her snow suit and around her stomach. His palms were removed from her skin by a tight but thick turtleneck. "You seem to be doing all right in here," he commented in a teasing voice.

She repeated what he had done, removing her gloves and slipping her arms into his snowsuit and around his chest. It was a hug, only it wasn't a hug, because they were horizontal, and that made it different.

A lot of things were making it different.

"_Caliente_," he said.

Sharpay wasn't quite hot enough to fan herself: "_Más caliente_, anyway."

"That's not your line."

"Oh. _Suave_."

"Yes, I've noticed," he responded, against his better judgment.

"I try."

"I know."

"Listen, Ry, I might have to bop my way to the top here, I'm getting squished."

"You'll be warmer on bottom."

"I'll suffocate on bottom."

He rolled onto his back, rotating her into the air. She laughed. "This is nice. I just wish we were in bed." Then she gasped at what she had just said. "Well, you know what I mean."

"Do I?"

Sharpay swallowed. "I didn't mean anything."

"Shar, I-I-"

"I don't know what you're about to say, but you probably shouldn't say it."

"Why not? I've been letting you walk all over me our entire lives, and then I finally faced up to it. Maybe it's time to face up to this too."

Even though they were practically forehead to forehead, it was so dark that they couldn't see anything except for a glimmer that differentiated skin from fabric. Sharpay felt an inclination to turn her head away, but it was instinctual. It would have served no purpose. "Face up to what?" she demanded.

"That things between us aren't what they should be…for a number of reasons. The one I'm primarily concerned with at the moment is the fact that I want to kiss you."

He heard her sharp intake of breath, but she said nothing.

"You can't tell me I'm the only one feeling an…attraction."

She didn't respond.

"There was that one time when we almost kissed."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sharpay finally said, in a tone that indicated that she very much did know the event he was referring to.

"Methinks thou dost protest too much. Sis."

"I think I protested just the right amount. And that wasn't an almost kiss – I slipped. You pulled me to hard and too fast, and I only had the one foot on the ground, and I slipped."

The moment in question had come at the end of their first complete run through of "What I've Been Looking For" while rehearsing for the _Twinkle Town_ auditions. He was pretty sure she hadn't slipped.

"Besides," Sharpay added, "It's easy to get a little overexcited when you've just done something perfect."

"Right," he replied skeptically, though he knew exactly what she was talking about. Maybe it could explain away what had happened that day, but not what was between them right now.

He moved to kiss her, but she sensed it coming and placed one of her hands over his mouth in time. "This is not a good image for our brother-sister act," she declared forcefully.

Ryan thought that scandal would probably be the one thing that would guarantee them success, but that was neither here nor there. He grabbed her wrist, removed her hand, flipped her onto her back once again, and planted a firm kiss on her lips.

Even as surprised as she was, she didn't struggle.

She was breathless when he pulled away…and the warmest she'd been since they left the lodge.

They were saved from conversation by the sound of a horn in the distance.

"They found us!" Sharpay exclaimed, scrambling out from underneath him in a panic, zipping up her snowsuit and retrieving her gloves. "I'm going straight into the Jacuzzi."

Ryan, less excitedly, followed her example.

The rescue party was far more relieved to have found Ryan and Sharpay than Ryan and Sharpay seemed to be at having been found. There had been a beacon in the snowmobile, and once their parents had decided for sure that something was wrong, it had been easy to follow the signal.

It hurt him to see his lovely fort torn down. Even Sharpay seemed a little sad.

They followed the rescue snowmobile back to the lodge. All in all, it wasn't too far away, but the route was complicated. The experienced driver had no trouble navigating in the falling snow, but Ryan knew he and Sharpay had been right to stop when they did because they never would have made it without help.

They both tuned out the lectures they got from their parents and the resort staff while they ate a hot meal.

Ryan could feel Sharpay's sideways glances, but he was too nervous to look at her. He'd finally realized why the thought of him and her forever had seemed like perfection: he was in love with her. He'd always been in love with her.

He took a long, hot shower, and assumed she had followed her plan to hit the Jacuzzi. He'd already lain awake in bed for an hour when she slipped in through his door and began pacing.

"There's no room for this kind of thing in a life lived in the spotlight," she explained, never looking directly at him.

"If you're always going to put what people think about you first, then there's nothing left to talk about," he responded, hiding his vulnerability behind a mask of impatience and criticism.

"I'm a performer."

"So am I."

"I'd always envisioned you and me together forever, you know that." Her pacing quickened. "But this…Well, it's messy."

"Emotions usually are."

"But we're not talking about emotions, are we? I'll always _love_ you, Ryan. We're talking about sex."

"The distinction you mean to make is the one between what is socially acceptable and what is socially unacceptable. If you were listening to your heart, that distinction wouldn't matter so much."

She had ambulated enough around the room that she found herself at his window. Peering out, she pondered what he had said.

"You're right," she said softly, leaping into bed with him. She laid her head on his chest with a satisfied sigh. "I suppose after our close call with snowy death, you're ready to head back to Albuquerque?"

"If we never left right here, it would be all right with me."

"Me too."


End file.
